In the next 100 years or so, we will run out of fossil fuels. In the film below, Nobel laureates Mario Molina and Robert Laughlin challenge three young physicists at this summer’s Lindau Nobel Laureates meeting in Germany to think seriously about the energy endgame and their children’s futures. Molina thinks we can solve the looming crisis through international collaboration—as happened after he showed that CFCs were damaging the ozone layer. Laughlin disagrees. He wants engineering solutions, and says nations will go to war unless we find them.

At this year's Lindau meeting, the participating laureates and young researchers came from all over the world, but they had one thing in common: physics. The NatureVideo team filmed five debates on issues that matter to the current generation of physicists. Is dark matter real? How can we solve the looming energy crisis? How is physics perceived by the public? The result was a five-episode film series, including this film, which is the second episode in the series.